unclear exactly where donald trump's supporters will go. but i have to say, i was on the campaign trail over the past year, even during the pandemic, talking to trump voters, both at rallies and outside of rallies, and they are invested in donald trump. they are invested in donald trump the man. they are not invested in the same way in the republican party. so my sense is that these voters don't go away as long as donald trump's voice is out there, as long as he is a symbol that they can attach themselves to. so it's going to depend on how vocal donald trump is in the next two and four years. and chuck, we've got to talk about where the republican party goes because of this, because so many republicans have lashed themselves even tighter to donald trump because of that base, because of the need to keep them during a primary. what we saw in georgia last night and into today was that that base will only take you so far. look at david perdue, got less

votes than he did in november. clearly what donald trump has done in the last couple of months has turned off another voters to make it hard for republicans to win a general election. so the calculus is going to be now, how do i win a primary and win a general, and what do i do about these trump voters. i'm curious, chuck, to find out what exactly these senators who are object iing, what they're thinking right now after what happened in georgia. >> the one i'm most curious about, a now losing senator, kelly loeffler, will she really be challenging? it's sort of like, who are you to do this at this point? we're going to move to those georgia races. steve kornacki at the board. steve, first, i want you to show us why we think ossoff is on his way to victory here. that would be number one. but i guess from your perch here, when you look at all these numbers, did the republicans lose these races or did the democrats win them? >> yeah, so we'll start just with the first one to lay out why you see ossoff leading by

17,000 votes. if you heard that press conference from the secretary of state's office, they say they think 60,000 absentee ballots to come. here is why that looks so promising for ossoff. take a look at where these remaining absentee ballots are from. this is gwinnett county, cobb county, 6,000 from there, fulton county, about 5,000 from there. dekalb county, there's going to be just short of 18,000 from there. and henry county, just short of 9,000 from there. you can add these up, this is more than two-thirds of the outstanding absentee vote in the entire state of georgia. that's what this is down to, the outstanding absentee vote is going to be from this core democratic area. these are all democratic counties in this election. and again, we're talking about absentee mail votes here, vote by mail, which is the most democratic type of vote. not only is it mail vote from democratic counties -- excuse me, mail vote from democratic counties, so heavily, heavily democratic vote.

you can certainly expect that ossoff number to climb. you heard the secretary of state's office, they're saying they think he will be outside of that recount window of half a percent when all of these come in. in terms of your question, did republicans lose it, did democrats win it, it's a little from column "a" and a little from column "b." a tale of two congressional districts. if you look at the results in georgia, there's congressional district, very roughly speaking, inside the circle i just drew, in the northeast corner of georgia. as you can see, it's a -- northwest corner. it's a core republican district. trump got close to 80% of the vote in this congressional district. this is the congressional district where republicans sent donald trump the night before the election because what they were worried about, republicans were going to win the counties but they were worried about turnout in this core republican area. when we got the votes counted in from there, how close did this congressional district come to

matching the november turnout? preliminarily, it looks like the level of this turnout in this district is about 85% of what it was in november. it dropped about 15%. okay, how do we compare that? let's take another congressional district here, this is the second congressional district, again, roughly, roughly speaking here, this is the southwest corner of georgia. it's about a 51% black district. there's a lot of rural counties here that are either majority black or that have like 40% plus black populations. what did democrats say in the early voting period for these georgia runoffs? they said in the early voting period they were turning out more black voters, black voters who hadn't turned out in the november elections, and they were doing it in rural counties of the state. that's what you were going to see on election day. how was turnout in this more democratic, black-heavy area of georgia? it was at 90% of the november 2020 level. so they got 90% of the way there in the second district. and up here in the ninth district, you're -- excuse me, 13th district, you're talking

about 85%. so republicans did not get the kind of turnout in their core area that democrats were able to get in one of their core areas. i think democrats achieved something there and republicans failed to achieve something. >> as always, mr. kornacki, well said, well put, and well demonstrated, sir, thank you. i should mention right now the president is addressing those protesters right now. and shockingly, he does not believe the results in georgia. and he is still disputing those and disputing it all right now. but let me go down to blayne alexander, she joins us live from atlanta. blayne, i have to tell you, it is remarkable, i think, given what we saw the president do for about a week and all of the attacks on the voting system down there. could this runoff have gone any smoother with the amount of turnout, how quick they counted? you have to say, this all went on without a hitch. >> reporter: you know, that's absolutely true. and i've got to say that after

covering this entire election cycle here in georgia, starting with the primary back in june, which we all know was widely called a debacle, essentially, a meltdown here in georgia, from what we saw then to november, taking days to get to the presidential election results, to what we saw here, night and day difference. i have to say that just kind of spending time at polling locations yesterday, talking to voters, not just at one place in fulton county but talking to voters from different places around the state, it really was smooth sailing across the state of georgia yesterday when it came to wait times, nothing longer than 15 or 20 minutes in and out. a lot of that had to do with record early voting numbers, people coming out to vote early. when you talk about where the senate races stand right now, it's hard to overstate just politically how major this is, when you talk about the shifting tide here in the state of georgia. of course we look back in november, joe biden winning the state, flipping it blue for the first time in nearly three decades. but all along, democrats have

been pushing this as the message, saying that this is a continuation of 2020, essentially saying election day isn't over until we get through with these senate races and really billing this as a referendum on what would happen at least with president-elect joe biden's presidency, saying that the success of his presidency is tied to the success of the two democratic candidates in this race. so when you hear a lot of people talking, when i talk to democrats, talking about their message in terms of getting out the vote, even voters, when i talk to them about why they came out to the polls, that is very heavily factored in there, chuck. they talk about the fact that they knew it didn't end in november, they said that what happened yesterday was just as important as coming out to the polls a few months ago. >> you know, blayne alexander, i was just thinking, more than anybody else at nbc, i think now you get to celebrate 2021. your 2020 finally ended yesterday, so congratulations. >> reporter: i appreciate it, chuck, thanks.

>> blayne alexander who has been all over the georgia senate runoffs for us, thank you. kasie hunt is standing by, yes, it will be an historic day for multiple reasons, and so kasie, you know, i'm very curious, and we had this discussion, yesterday, externally and internally, how much would the results last night impact the behavior of some republicans on the floor particularly in the united states senate today. do you have any inkling now, now that senate republicans know democrats will be in charge, will that change the vibe today? >> reporter: chuck, i don't think that it changes any of the realities that we're going to see today. it certainly doesn't change the incentives for people like josh hawley and ted cruz to object here. i mean, they're still looking ahead to a 2024 presidential primary where they believe that donald trump is going to be a force of some kind.

but i can tell you that the atmosphere here has changed dramatically overnight. i mean, this is not something that, as you know, there certainly were some rumblings or some questions going into last night about whether republicans were in as strong a position from a structural perspective as they had thought or assumed. they weren't as optimistic as they had been a couple of weeks ago. but i do think there was a basic assumption that everyone was operating under that the democrats were the underdogs and that it was more likely we were going to wake up and mitch mcconnell was going to still be the majority leader in the united states senate. so i think that that level of surprise, you know, i've run into a couple of democratic senators up here this morning, there are very wide smiles on their faces, and it really does change the tone of all of this, because while before this, when republicans were in power in the senate or the perception was that they were likely to be in power, the threat around trying

to undermine the election felt somehow more real, in a way. i think that some of the legitimacy of the threat or the fear around that has lessened here. and it's more clear that republicans, frankly, have a real problem and that the political incentives, perhaps mitch mcconnell was right to be worried about the suburbs and to be talking about how they needed to be focused on a different set of issues than, you know, what josh hawley and ted cruz are doing. they're now the party that's divided. chuck, you and i know, politics 101, the party that's divided is the party that loses. >> two of the senators, from my home state, rick scott, incoming chairman of the republican senate committee, the guy in charge of putting mitch mcconnell back in power if that happens, and of course marco rubio, they have stayed amazingly silent.

what are they going to do? >> reporter: chuck, it's a great question. and you're right, it is remarkable as to what they've done here. i will say that marco rubio's rhetoric has been focused on changing the republican party to the party of the working class. that's how he's been focused, and that says to me he's more focused on the trump base. but rick scott as the chairman of the nrsc, is mitch mcconnell's number one henchman. mcconnell simply doesn't want this vote to go this way. he's been very clear, he's called it a vote of conscience. i would be very surprised if scott were to break with mcconnell on this, because he does have a pretty tough job, coming up. i know you and i have talked a little bit about the map, obviously there are some unpredictable things that could happen between now and 2022. but it's not a cakewalk for either side. and both of them are going to have -- democrats are going to be on defense in some tough places. but republicans are going to have some challenges as well, chuck. >> kasie hunt, going to be a day. >> reporter: yes, it is. >> it's going to be interesting. kasie, thank you.

i'm about to go over to peter alexander, but quickly, andrea, you've covered mitch mcconnell. you know him a long time. how is he going to navigate today? >> he is going to give them their say, their opportunity, but i think all the signals are he does not want this to go on forever. it's going to go through ariz a arizona, the first objection. once it becomes clear -- >> he'll shut this down? >> we have to watch mike pence. mike pence will allow a certain amount of bloviating, shall we say, to satisfy, you know, the chief. >> well, there's some bloviating going on. our own peter alexander, our white house correspondent, is at the white house. we're getting some hints of what he's saying. we know he doesn't accept what happened in georgia. i know that this is our shocked face on that. what more do we expect, and how much pressure is the president putting on his vice president today? >> reporter: it's notable, chuck, that when this event started, we'll get to kelly

o'donnell who is there in a moment, his microphone wasn't working. frankly what he says right now won't matter, it doesn't impact the outcome today. it certainly doesn't make things pleasant for mike pence. the president moments ago amping up the public pressure campaign, saying that if pence does the right thing, we win this election. we know that's not true. in my conversations with those close to president trump, he knows that's not true as well, he understands the way the legal procedures work throughout this, nonetheless pence, who is really his fiercest loyalist, who has been his loyal deputy from the very beginning, is the one who is kind of at the end of the day getting at his reward being thrown to the wolves of the maga faithful who believe that he alone can fix this situation which again is not true, despite the president's false claims. the president again today claiming the election in november was rigged, that there were fraudulent votes, that votes showed up out of nowhere. the question i asked of one of

president's allies today is, so what does happen now? aside with them being frustrated with the president's attacks on pence which they realize doesn't help the president's situation and puts pence in a tough situation, they said this, not surprisingly like everything else, is about the president, he'll take his $250 million plus in his campaign account and become, in the words of this ally, a monster with influence over the gop, chuck. >> peter alexander on the white house north lawn, peter, thank you. as you mentioned, kelly o'donnell is covering the protesters, the trump base, i guess is one way to see it. what's the emotion today, given what happened in georgia? and do these folks care about what happened in georgia last night, kelly? >> reporter: well, it's very much been a part of what's been talked about today. and this is a different mood compared to some trump rallies.

the president is speaking right now. from him and from his supporters, you don't get what used to be sort of the joyful party feeling at trump rallies. i've been to dozens of them. there's definitely a different mood today. the president is talking about republicans who he says do not have courage, are not supportive of him, and talks about them being pathetic, in his words, and already talking about pressuring mike pence, saying he talked to him earlier today, he's talking about mike pence right now. with the trump supporters and enthusiasts here, there is definitely a feeling, based on the conversations that have been happening here and the speakers including the president, an anger toward other republicans and wanting to have a line, if you will, those who stood up for trump in the action that happens at the capitol today, and those who don't. so there is probably the most

dominant word used today, chuck, has been "fight." and that is fighting for president trump, fighting going forward. it's that kind of an atmosphere here, chuck. >> kelly o'donnell, at the site of the protests, thanks so much. katy tur, you've been covering trump rallies since they became a thing back in 2015. you know his people. how are they going to receive mike pence tomorrow when he does not do what they think he can do? >> not warmly. and that's the short of it. not warmly at all. they expect mike pence to do the president's bidding. and the president is asking mike pence to violate the constitution to do something frankly he doesn't have the power to do. and we shouldn't expect that to happen today. the thing about this president, chuck, is that every single person that has been loyal to him, and no one has been more loyal than mike pence, the

president ultimately shivs when that person is no longer doing his bidding, when that person is no longer helping him. we've seen that throughout his entire presidency, throughout the campaign before that. he is loyal to no one while everyone around him is loyal to him. and it is a message to republicans, that listen, you are making a deal with the devil here, to use a phrase, because this person is not going to help you when you need him. and that's what we saw in georgia. what georgia needed, what georgia republicans needed was for the president to come down there and campaign for those two senate republicans to say the election wasn't rigged, you got to come out and have a check on the democratic party. he didn't do that. he went down there to north georgia where those republicans really needed good turnout and he talked about how the election was rigged over and over again. he has no loyalty to anyone but himself. so when mike pence comes out, the vice president who has stood by his side, mechanically by his side and nodded at every single

thing he says, no matter how wild it was, when mike pence doesn't do what the president is asking, which is impossible for him to do, he is going to feel a backlash from that base. now, will it matter four years from now when mike pence, if he does try to run for president in 2024? we'll have to see how time tests trumpism. but it's not going to feel good in the short term. >> i'll tell you this, i don't know if many republican nominees in the future are going to pick indiana republicans as their running mate because apparently it only guarantees one term. very quickly, andrea, i know you wanted to jump in here, the president just told the protesters that he plans to march to the capitol with them. now, we'll see what secret service has to say about that and i don't know if that's actually going to happen. but that could be. very quickly. >> very quickly, politicians like to win, we see this with the president, and they have seen what his behavior over the last week, as katy was saying at

the top of the show, his behavior doomed the campaigns of these two republicans in georgia. and everyone is taking note of that. >> let's get into the legal questions, if you will. so what better person to have than pete williams, he's following all the ins and outs of these electoral vote objections. and look, we may have as few as three, arizona, georgia, and pennsylvania, or as many as six with nevada, michigan, and possibly wisconsin on there. i'm going to ask the question that i get asked by some various family members. there's no way any of this works, right? so, pete, how do you answer that question? >> i answer it, "right." that's two ways to look at it, chuck. one is the sheer political numbers you need, that you need to win in both houses. because if there are objections, and there will be, they're not sustained unless both the house and senate agree. and they may not win in either. the objections may fail in both the house and senate.

but there's no way they're going to work in both. so we know what the end of this play is going to be. we just don't know how it's going to get there. this is literally the oldest thing that the federal government does. this is the first thing that the very first congress did, was to count the electoral votes. this is what the constitution says is the role of the vice president, also known as the senate president. he is to open all the certificates, and the vote shall be counted. that's all the constitution says. there's a long federal law that was passed 133 years ago that gives more guidance to the process, and that's how we know how this whole objection system works. and we know, chuck, that there have been in some states, in five or six states, where biden won, republicans have nonetheless mailed to the vice president's office their own slates of electors, here's two of them, one that came from georgia and the one that came

from arizona, and they both say, you know, you ought to count our votes, in the those other votes. i just make one other point. the electoral counting act, this ancient, badly-drawn statute that is guiding the process today, basically says that the job of the congress is to ask itself this question: are these votes that we have in our hands that came to the floor in these mahogany boxes that we see every four years, the votes of the legitimately certified electors from the state, yes or no? that's the decision they're supposed to make. so technically, looking into whether the state improperly allowed mail-in ballots to be counted if they weren't signed on the envelopes, the way the system is supposed to work is that's a decision for the states to make. and once they get to congress, the question for congress is a very simple one, are these the

legitimate lecturelectors certiy the government or not. >> that's the formality of it all. yet we'll see a lot more political theater that will take us longer to get us to the point where we certify this election. we'll try and sneak in a break here. this could be the final chapter in the 2020 election. quite the season finale, i guess. let's sneak in this break. we'll be right back. when our daughter and her kids moved in with us... our bargain detergent couldn't keep up. turns out it's mostly water. so, we switched back to tide. one wash, stains are gone. daughter: slurping don't pay for water. pay for clean. it's got to be tide. but today there's a combination of two immunotherapies you can take first. one that could mean... a chance to live longer. opdivo plus yervoy is for adults newly diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer that has spread and that tests positive for pd-l1

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welcome back. we are now about half an hour away from the start of congress' official count of the electoral college vote, a process that usually takes minutes but in this case will likely take hours and possibly a full day. with us now, claire mccaskill, a former democratic senator from missouri, now a msnbc news political analyst, and rich lowry, editor of "the national review" and an nbc political analyst. democrats pull off the senate. i have to say, after the november -- right after the november election, i think the conventional wisdom was, if democrats are counting on the georgia runoff seats, they're not going to win control of the senate. that's why conventional wisdom isn't so wise these days. but that didn't happen by accident, did it? >> yeah, conventional wisdom sucks when trump in the white house. >> that's great. >> trump did us a huge favor.

trump spent the last six weeks bloviating about -- sense he's bloviating today with lies, but basically spewing lies, cozying up to qanon, trashing the republican governor and the republican secretary of state, instead of focusing like a laser on what needed to be done. and what happened yesterday is all at the feet of donald trump and his minions, namely josh hawley and ted cruz. they're the ones that flipped the senate. now, don't get me wrong, don't start, twitter, i get the hard work that went in and the doors that were knocked and the organization, stacey abrams and so many black women and so many black churches that decided they weren't going to put up with the disrespect that was being shown to the black church in georgia. i get all that. but trump did us a huge favor.

>> rich lowry, i want to turn to what i think today is. before i ask you the question, i want to play this little tape of mitt romney getting heckled as he's flying to d.c. last night. and then i'll ask a question on the other side about what today is about. i guess we don't. but i think you've seen that clip, i'm guessing, apparently we don't have it racked up here. and i guess the question for you is this. today feels like the first day of this battle for the control of the republican party. is that what we're going to be watching on the floor of the senate today? >> yeah. it's a chapter in what's going to be a long fight. and you have josh hawley and ted cruz putting their wager on that it's smarter for them to be with trump and his voters, and this will pay off in iowa, new hampshire, and south carolina four years from now. and you have other republicans, i think standing on principle,

and saying, look, this is a magisterial role, congress is supposed to count the votes, there's no legitimate, legal alternate slate of electors, there's nothing else for us to do and we're creating a horrible precedent. that's what tom cotton who also might have 2024 ambitions, ben sasse, liz cheney in the house. but this will be a long struggle. >> rich, your side of the aisle has had these fights before in various states where it becomes, suddenly what was unthinkable becomes thinkable, then there's the, okay, how do you respond. i guess the question i have is, are republicans going to look at what happened in 2020, in particularly these runoffs, and say, huh, loeffler and perdue weren't authentically trumpy enough and that's why this happened? or, oh, no, this is the suburbs -- trump has eroded the suburbs and this is on him? >> they'll say both. some republicans will say

republicans didn't support trump enough, mcconnell didn't pass the $2,000 checks trump wanted, that was a huge mistake. you'll have other republicans saying trump at least complicated, but as claire points out, probably was decisive in turning this election against loeffler and perdue. and there will be a big fight about that, there will be huge primary battles, it will be very much like the tea party area where it was a roiling time of discontent, also great energy. republicans in that period won some great victories but also threw away some house and senate seats unnecessarily. >> katy tur. >> claire, you know the senate really well. if jon ossoff pulls it off and democrats retake control of the senate, who is going to be the most powerful person going into 2021? >> well, whenever i went to the senate when it was 51-49, in those days there was a pretty large group, bipartisan, of people that tried to bring everybody together in the

middle. you know, tried to compromise, tried to find the sweet spot. if you look to the people capable of crossing the aisle, those are the people who are going to be the most powerful, whether it is kyrsten sinema on our side of the aisle who has got a real independent streak, obviously joe manchin, there are people like jon tester who is independent. then you've got on the other side, you've got the rob portmans, who is up in two years, the susan collinses, people who are in blue states that are also going to be part of that equation. they're the ones who are going to decide what passes and what doesn't. but chuck schumer will be the one who decides what they get to vote on, and that is the real power. >> what do you see as the legislative priority? will health care be up first? the stimulus and $2,000 checks will be probably quick to go

out, but what else after that? >> first you'll see i think the $2,000. then you're going to try to see what can get done on climate, what can get done on health care, what can get done on prescription drug prices, and frankly, what can get done on campaign finance reform. i think those are the kind of things that could easily get, you know, some bipartisanship. i don't think they'll have the votes to blow up the filibuster, because joe manchin has already said he won't vote for it. so i don't think they'll blow up the filibuster. which means on most things they're going to have to get to 60 votes if he is not a nomination, cabinet nomination or a judicial nomination. >> andrea? >> and claire, a question as to control. is chuck schumer going to do what mitch mcconnell did, what he's criticized mitch mcconnell for doing, and not letting the republicans vote on anything unless it gets through chuck schumer? >> i think chuck schumer will be very strategic. and by the way, listen, a lot of

people get credit, but i am happy for my friend today, people have no idea how hard he's worked and for how long to arrive at this day. i think he'll be very strategic. i think he will figure out where he can get the votes and where he can box republicans when it's appropriate to make them vote on things they don't want to vote on. and he's going to be looking at 2022, just like mitch mcconnell is always focused on his majority, chuck has the bare majority, so he's really got to win wisconsin and pennsylvania, those are two big states up in two years that clearly biden won and that he's going to be counting on getting across the finish line with it years from now to build that majority slightly. >> rich, really quickly, can mike pence politically survive today? >> it's very tough. he's in an incredibly awkward position. obviously he's staked so much on being completely loyal to donald

trump through the entirety of the four years, then edghe comeo this moment where he doesn't have any meaningful power, he has to sit in the chair and announce what happened, and trump is making this as painful as possible. this will be a major blow to him politically. but i'm proud that he appears to be willing to do the right thing. >> he can call up jeff sessions and ask him what it's like. rich and claire, you guys are going to be sticking around, i appreciate that. but joining us now is one of the lawmakers who will be in the room where it happens, rhode island democratic senator sheldon whitehouse. all of us, senator, will have a few questions for you. i want to begin with something you wrote earlier this week. and because there's going to be a real debate about this, which is, the trump era, the so-called truth and reconciliation commission, if you will, i use that as an umbrella, and i apologize for overparaphrasing what you're calling for, but

you're looking -- president obama, when he came in, decided to move on from the bush/cheney era on the iraq war, things like that. and you said you acknowledged that. you don't want to see that happen this time. explain. >> well, there are several areas where i think it's absolutely vital that we understand what took place. you can't effect a cure if you don't have a proper diagnosis. and going from small to big, the department of justice is an obvious place that needs serious restoration and repair. and i think, rather than have the entity, the new attorney general, try to fix it himself or herself, that you need to have a group that can advise the attorney general, of people who understand the department, who have served in the department, who are former u.s. attorneys, former leaders of the department. and then you rebuild it from within, basically, going back to

its old, familiar norms and values. there is just going to be an enormous amount of corruption that comes out of all of these trump agencies that we're all going to see. and it's going to be congress' job to investigate that. and i think that the best way to do that is to have a special committee set up to look specifically at that so that all of our working committees can go on with the biden agenda. and when somebody comes in with a complaint or a concern, we know where it goes and where the corruption was fairly major and maybe jumped across committee or agency boundaries, you can follow it, because you're not trapped in individual committees. and then the third piece of course is this long, really disgraceful covert operation that the fossil fuel industry has run specifically to corrupt congress, using dark money, using front groups, using all of the techniques of covert operations. and if we don't pull the lid off

of that, we will be doing a grave disservice to the country. so those are three quite specific areas where i think we should be sensible and focused on making sure we understand what has happened so we can make progress going forward. >> do you see any possibility, senator, that the democrats can quietly, behind the scenes, do what democrats did a couple of decades ago when they got jim jeffords to switch to becoming an independent who caucused with democrats? can you pick off some of these republicans, say a lisa murkowski, just for example, someone who has not been happy with the trump way the republican party has gone and how the republican senate has been run? >> it's hard to say that right now. i wouldn't rule it out, of course. but i think there's going to be i think some bloodletting in republican circles after yesterday's events in georgia and today's events on the senate

floor. i don't think that heals quickly. and i think as that infighting continues and perhaps even gets more toxic, you'll see people who are -- feel more free to think of another way of doing business, either declare as independents and just agree to caucus with us, or, you know, help us on different issues. but i do think that the republican party as we've known it under trump is in for a very significant, perhaps even very rough upheaval. >> senator, allow me to jump in, i have a quick question about what sort of legislation gets passed. how progressive will the agenda be, given that it's just going to be potentially a 50/50 split? >> i think you've got to do important things. and i think there's a big window. a lot of what we failed to do, we failed to do because mitch mcconnell wouldn't bring it up

to protect either a minority or a majority of his caucus. but on a lot of big issues like climate change, like justice reform, i believe that there are a significant number of republicans who, when the choice is forced upon them, will behave responsibly and who will work with us and try to get a good and bipartisan bill. they've been sheltered and protected and to a certain degree beaten down by mitch mcconnell to just try to protect other members of the caucus. that protection is not available now for republicans. chuck schumer gets to decide, assuming ossoff wins, chuck schumer gets to decide what comes to the senate floor. and we can use that, i think, to build big bipartisan, even progressive wins in a lot of different areas. >> senator sheldon whitehouse, i really appreciate you coming on. i think today is going to be quite the spectacle.

and we'll be here -- >> amateur theatrics turned poisonous, chuck. >> there we go. senator, thanks very much. geoff bennett is of course covering the biden transition. we have a little breaking news, it looks like the president-elect has decided on an attorney general and it's a familiar name, particular to washington, d.c. folk. >> reporter: you're right about that, chuck, two sources familiar tell my colleague mike memoli and me that president-elect biden has chosen merrick garland for his attorney general. he considered garland, outgoing senator doug jones of alabama, and former deputy attorney general in the trump administration sally yates. the conventional wisdom had been that the easiest of those to confirm who have been doug jones, who enjoys lots of close relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, senators on both sides of the

aisle, but now that democrats appear poised to take control of the senate, of course those races have not been called but that appears to be the direction, the calculus has changed a bit. there was a concern that if joe biden elevated merrick garland he would then have to replace him on the d.c. circuit court of appeals on which he sits. and that would have been potentially another confirmation battle. but now that concern appears to be no more. so our reporting is such that merrick garland is someone who is widely viewed, who can be a unifying force within the department of justice, trying to restore public faith in that institution and restore morale within it. there had been concern among some civil rights advocates with whom i had spoken that he was seen as being potentially too deferential to law enforcement interests and that he didn't have the kind of track record on civil rights that sally yates has. but our reporting is that merrick garland is the pick. and this announcement could come most likely tomorrow, chuck. >> you know, it's interesting, geoff, it's so clear, you can

see where biden's head is, he wants to restore integrity, the perception of integrity to the justice department. talk about as apolitical a person as you can get, in merrick garland, you're getting that with a liberal sensibility. let me ask you this, geoff. i mean, it's no coincidence this came after what happened last night, obviously. was it basically, is doug jones the republican -- would he have been the pick if it had been a republican senate, is that what we're looking at here? >> reporter: it's a great question. joe biden told our colleague mike memoli last week that he wasn't waiting for the georgia senate runoff results to make a determination about attorney general. but it appears that his sort of long deliberations made it so that that was the case anyway. so i think it's a great point, and we have to do some more reporting on that, to find out to what degree that was a factor in merrick garland being the choice over doug jones who i had

been told up until this weekend was likely going to be the guy to get the position, chuck. >> geoff bennett in wilmington covering the president-elect and the transition. geoff, thank you. you know, andrea mitchell, i was just doing the math here. merrick garland was nominated for a supreme court seat i believe at the end of february, early march, 2016. >> exactly. >> my guess is he's going to get his confirmation vote sometime at the end of february, merrick garland will finally get his vote five years later. i'm really -- i find the symbolic move of somebody who was on the cusp of becoming a supreme court justice, someone who every member of the supreme court will tell you today is somebody that belongs there, and he's here to restore the integrity. i totally get where biden is coming from on this. i know politically this will upset some folks on the left. but this is about restoring trust across the aisle. >> there's another piece of this

also. a lot of people, a lot of people in the civil rights community not happy that an african-american, black person, person of color, someone active in the movement, is not in this post. i think you will see a black person now with the senate now 50/50, a black person in the d.c. circuit, which is the most important below the supreme court, as well as possibly deputy ag. the other piece of this is, joe biden needs protection, because he needs to be able to say that anything that happens going forward with hunter biden is completely beyond reproach. this is a judicious choice. >> i think in this case it's a president who understands the mandate he has, restore some trust. >> he was chair of the judiciary committee. >> katy tur, quick thoughts on merrick garland. i know you want to take another turn. >> triple whammy for mitch mcconnell, a nightmare divide within his party, a party that he can't control suddenly, potentially losing the majority,

and now the return of merrick garland. it has all come full circle from 2016. let's bring in ellison barber, on the ground in washington, d.c. covering the protests. ellison, the president is really riling people up right now. he just said he didn't like his attorney general because his attorney general, bill barr, didn't want to be his personal lawyer. >> reporter: yeah, i mean, a lot of people here were playing videos of that speech the president was giving, listening to it, reacting in real time. we just saw a motorcade pull up here that we believe might have been vice president mike pence. either way when that motorcade pulled up, this crowd immediately started reacting. one person over here was leading a chant, yelling at who i believe they think was pence to fight for trump, one woman saying, you were on the ticket too, you can do something, do it now. obviously we know that legal

spiri experts have said that's not the case, there's nothing the vice president can do here, but these people believe this election was fraudulent. when you have conversations with people asking why they believe that, and when you try to explain where there may be inaccura inaccuracies, this is not a group that wants to hear that. they're convinced the president should still be in office. many of the people who we have spoken to, who have traveled from far and near to be here, they are adamant this is not a fight they'll give up easily. when i asked what they'll do after the electoral vote count is done, most of them say they will continue fighting in some form or fashion, katy. >> i was talking to a psychology proff professor about that and he was telling me, when you believe a conspiracy, the more you fact check that conspiracy, the more people who dig in and believe it stronger. ellison barber, thank you so much. andrea, i think we need a little historical context for what we're seeing right now. >> it is a day calling out for some historic perspective on

these events. and who better than nbc presidential historian michael beschloss. michael, you could argue this is a ceremonial event in the past, with the southern writer in mind, perhaps signifying sound and fury, rather, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing. but today republicans are trying to turn it into something very different. is there any precedent for this? >> no, nothing like this at all, andrea. you and i have talked about this, and chuck too, and katy. this is a situation where we have no contested election. we had one in 1800. we had one in 1824, 1876, 2000 there were serious questions over who had won the presidency. no person in his right mind thinks that donald trump was elected president in november of last year. and instead, you've got a president who is trying to hijack the process, in some way turn this to his own advantage, to overturn the election. he's now tweeting, praising

things this morning like voters are demanding that the election be redone, or the legislatures have not approved of this election. those things are lies. we've never seen anything like this. this should be a nonevent, sort of a nice ceremony that reminds us of what a great thing democracy is, rather than something that has unsettled many people unnecessarily. >> and we've seen the graceful presiding over these events by al gore, by fritz mondale, by other vice presidents, by richard nixon. is there any precedent for a president of the united states publicly and privately pressuring his vice president to deny reality? >> no. it's completely disgusting. this whole thing is an obscene carnival staged by donald trump, not surprisingly, given his background in reality shows. it is not going anywhere. but you've got a situation that the founders never anticipated, with a president out on the ellipse, threatening his vice president that he'd better do

the right thing, after four years of faithful service. just as you said, what the ceremony usually is, is the outgoing vice president, president of the senate, sometimes has to announce that his party ticket has lost the election, just as you said, andrea, nixon did that in 1960. walter mondale did that in 1980. if you look at the video of walter mondale, or i should say 1981, the 1980 election, it's lovely because it shows you the way that democracy -- what it should be. he announces that ronald reagan and george h.w. bush have won, and he and jimmy carter, mondale, and lost, they only got 49 votes. and mondale is joking with tip o'neill, the speaker of the house, and one of them says, really impressive, 49 votes. and the other one says, yes, it was absolutely terrific, a landslide. >> walter mondale who just turned 93 a few days ago. >> 93 years old.

>> indeed. michael beschloss, thank you so much, we'll check back with you. >> we are moments away from the start of the joint session of congress with the electoral votes from the moments away fro start of had joint session of congress where the results of the 2020 presidential election will be delivered and where we'll be expecting there will be some objections dragging out and adding drama to what is normally a standard affair. basically a ceremony getting hijacked by a political party having an intraparty feud. stay tuned. this is msnbc. we'll be right back. s msnbc. we'll be right back. i could be earning interest back on my money. i just discovered sofi, and i'm an investor with a diversified portfolio. who am i?! i refinanced my student loans with sofi because of their low interest rates. thanks sofi for helping us get our money right. ♪

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welcome back. we are of course keeping our eye on capitol hill. that is the senate chamber. the senators are are actually about to leave and head over to the house chamber for the joint session that will begin momentarily. the boxes, the mohogany boxes containing the envelopes of the electoral vote totals are on the move and headed over there. president trump again this morning urged the vice president mike pence who of course will preside over the opening of the envelope, he wants him to reject the vote and send them back to the sfat. something the vice president

does not have the constitutional authority to do. but we are beginning here with us now garret haake who covers news for capitol hill. nbc news legal analyst robert cy, another one of our constitutional scholar friends, and of course my anchor kyle and co-anchors katy tur and andrea mitchell. so we are back. the ceremonial stuff's beginning, the boxes are on the move. there's a little pomp and a lot of weirdness today. >> i think that's a good way of describing it. if you were to get a look at what happens for alabama and alaska, the first twoitates to go you'd get a sense how this would normally go in any post election electoral vote count. we'll see these electors called

out. there'll be no objection to those first two states. and then when we get to arizona, things will start to get weird. the vice president will ask if there's objections. they'll be presented in writing. they have to be someone from the house and the senate. and we know there's at least a couple of republican senators who said they'll sign-on to that arizona objection. then the weirdness travels. the two chambers will split back up. they'll begin their debate in opposite sides here. that's prescribed as a two hour debate, but this is going to last much longer than that in the era of coronavirus, just moving folks around, disinfecting and so forth. the day slows down, and we get really bogged down and exactly how weird these objectors want to make it. >> and you mentioned i was just going to ask you about covid, and andrea mitchell and i have been watching them gather in the senate and she goes they're close together, but they have been vaccinate immediatech and it's really because of how long it's going to take the house to vote, that that's why even though it's two hours, each one

may take longer than that, correct? >> the house will take longer to vote. they've been doing their votes in chunks. groups of members at a time, not trying to have everybody out on the floor, but then they've also got to make sure they disinfect the chamber before they bring anyone back. on the vaccination point, i do want to make one point. since lawmakers have started getting vaccinated in late december we've had two republican house members who got their first shot say they've tested positive for coronavirus. so this isn't a situation where these folks have gotten their shots and they're out of the woods yet. coronavirus is active here on capitol hill for their staff, reporters, police, everybody up here trying to do their jobs today. >> a point they had been so careful during covid of coming to the floor separately for votes, for key votes. and that was a really striking example of them being all close together with pence now leading the way as they cross the capitol. >> they were all wearing masks,

i'll give them that. >> which they have not notesaab in many of these hearings. >> claire mccaskill is with us. just to reinforce, you went through this as a senator, when they went through how p perfunkatory this is really, explain how this is. >> so perfunkatory, i don't remember doing it. i think just a few people went down that had to because it was administerial. now "state of the union," some kind of really big foreign leader those are joint sessions i recall, but i don't ever remember this. and it'll be interesting to see how this really goes down today, guys, because this will get tedious, and the reason it's going to take a long time is

because it's congress. it's not just the house voting. they're going to visit -- look at this they were supposed to start at 1:00. well, they didn't even start walking until 1:00. and they've got to visit until they come in. it just won't go quickly until they get tired of it and then it'll go quickly. the one thing i'll point out trump has said he's marching to the capitol with his gang of supporters. he has four privileges. he can walk on the floor of the senate or walk on the floor of the house. that would be an interesting moment if he decided to do that -- you talk about breaking a norm. you talk about ringing a bell. and so it'll be interesting to see if he knows that one, or two, if he tries to do it. >> well, it's very interesting, guys. we just got a letter from mike pence that he sent to members of congress. and we're just reading it now.

i want to read an excerpt here. i believe, you know, we've got our legal beagles with us, nate personally and robert cy here. i want to read he's trying to outline what he believes his powers are today. and in many ways i want to read a little bit here from it, and he says after careful study of our constitution and our laws, you know, he doesn't fully agree with the sort of conventional wisdom view of his role today. he says besting the vice president with unilateral authority to decide presidential contest would be entirely antithetical to that design. i do not believe that the founders of our country intended to invest the vice president with unilateral authority to decide which electoral votes should be counted during the session of congress and no vice president in american history has asserted such authority. instead vice presidents presiding over j